During a preliminary hearing Monday, an attorney representing Adam Kokesh argued that the stunt—filmed and posted on YouTube—was nothing more than political theater.

The judge disagreed, ordering that Kokesh be held until his next court appearance.

"I consider your client to be a very dangerous man," the judge said. "This is not a political statement."

Kokesh next court date is scheduled for Aug. 13.

I see the reasoning—God forbid this man be free to once again commit an act of journalism/activism involving a completely harmless "crime" (loading a banned weapon in a forbidden place–a weapon perfectly legal to use in many other places in the United States with little to no harm to anyone.)

His real crime of course is his claim that he has the right to perform harmless acts the state forbids. That's very difficult for agents of the state to forgive.

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I can see the arrest (even if I think it’s beyond stupid that what he did is illegal) but the held without bond thing is absurd. If he’s that dangerous, why screw around with the local holding cell when he clearly belongs at Gitmo?

His real crime of course is his claim that he has the right to perform harmless acts the state forbids. That’s very difficult for agents of the state to forgive.

This whole case is bullshit, but include me among the libertarians who thinks that Kokesh is a needlessly bellicose jackass that makes the rest of us look bad. Does he really think stunts like this are going to change anything?

Does this kind of act really push people away from libertarianism? At least push more away than draw in?

I don’t see why it shouldn’t be tried. It’s a clear cut case of the state punishing someone for no good reason. People who won’t change their minds will react with the standard, “Well, he was asking for this.” Hopefully some others will react appropriately and be a little more skeptical of state power. And maybe a very few will look at Kokesh’s stuff and get into the wider liberty movement.

That would be a great mass protest: thousands of people posting videos of themselves loading all sorts of weaponry at Freedom Plaza — all, of course, done with green screen and a solid alibi (I can show I was in Texas at the time, your Honor).

His real crime of course is his claim that he has the right to perform harmless acts the state forbids. That’s very difficult for agents of the state to forgive.

It’s also very difficult for most Americans to forgive. Agents of the state *are* evil, but the fundamental problem lies with average Americans who’d argue that breaking the law is wrong. Go tell your mother, brother, cousin or boss about Kokesh’s imprisonment and note how little sympathy you find.

You don’t actually have to consider what “political expression” means in order to make this sort of argument. In fact, it helps if you don’t. Instead, you start with a gut feeling that what Adam did is wrong. Therefore, what he did is not protected. But, political expression is protected by the 1st Amendment. Therefore, this is not political expression.

If you haven’t convinced your audience by that point, you can fall back on these stand-bys. Surely, the framers of the Bill of Rights did not anticipate somebody making a statement like this. Also, that type of gun didn’t even exist at the time of the founding.

He meant that it’s not a valid political statement, and thus not a political statement at all. To the mind of the statist, only political statements that agree with the supremacy of the state are valid.

Anarcho-masochist Adam Kokesh is going to have a hard time. I am pessimistic about this. He has accumulated a critical mass of thug-state functionaries carrying a grudge, certainly from the Philadelphia smoke-down and the resulting arrest-and-release nonsense, and from other in-your-face slights to multiple officious flunky louts.

“I consider your client to be a very dangerous man,” the judge said. “This is not a political statement.”

No, it’s the statement of a man with zero critical thinking skills. But, he is not alone. I noticed that some of the 2016 republicans presidential hopefuls are also declaring libertarians to be “dangerous”.

As I’ve always said, the government will leave libertarians alone until people start listening to them. Well, here we are.

I would love to see how the state proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that what is depicted in the YouTube video is an actual firearm. That’s how I’d run were I Kokesh’s defense attorney. If all you have is a YouTube video, I’ll eviscerate everybody involved on the stand.

Well, Kokesh saying it was a real gun is admissable. And they can subpoena the cameraman and any witnesses to testify whether or not they thought/knew it to be a real gun. I like what you’re thinking, but I think it’s easy for the prosecution to overcome.

Kokesh’s best defense is to talk up jury nullification and hypocrisy in the Gregory case, thereby making this a politically-motivated prosecution. But the judge will probably not allow it. He’s likely to end up convicted and this matter will eventually end up before the Supreme Court.

To hell with half-baked anarchy theories, you rationalistic hippy nihilists are a liability to serious, principled advocates of individual rights.

Anarchy is not freedom, and it sure as hell isn’t capitalism. Anarchy is a vacuum, a zero, nothing; a philosophy about anarchy is a philosophy about nothing, a pointless exercise in rationalistic wanking.